Rdio Takes a New Approach to Growing Audience

In an interesting approach to growing their audience, Rdio has launched a new “Artist Program” which rewards recording artists for bringing new listeners to the service. From their blog: “We’re committed to supporting the artist community and the music industry as a whole. That’s why today we’re launching the Rdio Artist Program — the first program of its kind, offering an innovative new model for artists to directly earn money from streaming music.”

The Rdio Artist Program encourages artists to create their own pages by uploading photos and connecting Twitter accounts. They can then share their music (if they upload their own content, they also agree to grant Rdio a royalty free use of that content.) Artists get ten bucks for each listener that signs up for a paid subscription (and maintains it for a certain period of time). Subscriptions cost ten bucks a month if you want access on your mobile device.

Kudos to Rdio for taking a new approach to gaining listeners that tries to engage them through the artists that they are passionate about. They report thatScissor Sisters, Snoop Lion (aka Snoop Dogg), Chromeo, A-Trak and Brendan Benson — already fans of Rdio — are among the first artists to join the program.

For that matter, why limit this kind of thing to recording artists? Why not let anyone who is passionate about music create their own page, tweet about it, and make ten bucks when their friends sign up?